Ultimate Success Today, Detroit group Protomartyr’s fifth album, channels serious Black Parade vibes as frontman Joe Casey closes a chapter for the band. Like Black Parade was to My Chemical Romance, this isn’t an outright end to the band but the last album to stay sonically consistent with music previously put out by Protomartyr. This album is both dense and dynamic thanks to Protomartyr’s macabre lyrics like, “A foreign disease washed upon the beach,” and incorporation of sax and woodwind sections which accent the group’s dark rock sound so well it makes you wonder why more rock bands aren’t doing it.

By Emma Chekroun